Despite teachers strike, Burlington sports teams to play on

Fran Brock, president of the Burlington Education Association, the teachers union, speaks at a news conference as striking Burlington teachers walk a picket line outside the high school on Thursday, September 14, 2017.
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Burlington's Bienfait Badibanga, right, tangles with South Burlington's Amerlin Nemeye at Buck Hard Field during a high school boys soccer game last season.(Photo11: GLENN RUSSELL/FREE PRESS)Buy Photo

Despite a teachers strike, school sports and other activities will continue in Burlington, according to a news release first sent to the Burlington Free Press late Thursday night.

The release, sent out by district communications specialist Erik Wells, states that "extracurricular activities, including athletics, can occur during the teachers’ strike" and that the district is "working to determine which BHS Homecoming athletic events will be played as scheduled."

Superintendent Yaw Obeng worked with administrators Thursday afternoon and evening to make this possible, after meeting with a number of BHS student-athletes, the release continued.

“These are memorable experiences, especially for our BHS seniors,” Obeng said in the release. “We are excited that we are able to create this opportunity for our students — both to compete and cheer on our BHS Seahorses this weekend for Homecoming.”

Union President Fran Brock said Friday morning via a news release that the Burlington Education Association had no objections to the district's decision.

"Although we will not be there, we wish our student athletes well this weekend,” Brock stated.

On Friday afternoon, the district released the high school's updated schedule for weekend varsity sports.

Three events on Friday:

3:30 p.m. Cross Country at Essex.

4 p.m. Boys soccer vs. Vergennes

7 p.m. Football vs. South Burlington

And three more games on Saturday:

11 a.m. Girls soccer vs. Champlain Valley Union

11:30 a.m. Girls volleyball vs. Mount Mansfield Union

4 p.m. Field Hockey vs. Rice (new time)

Officials are still working to reschedule sub-varsity games, the Friday news release stated.

For boys soccer senior Julian Segar-Reid, the news that sports were back on brought a dose of relief.

"It's been a crazy couple of days," Segar-Reid said. "Not only for sports, but academics and life revolving around school — it was a big distraction.

"Now with this, we can focus on our games."

Segar-Reid was one of about two dozen student-athletes who lined up outside BHS on Thursday morning.

"We want to represent our school, we weren't picking sides," Segar-Reid said. "We can take pride in the fact that we advocated for ourselves and we got a result from it."

The boys soccer team, without coach Fran Demasi, a BHS teacher, held a training session at Leddy Park on Thursday in preparation for Vergennes, Segar-Reid said.

The Seahorses, who already have one less scheduled regular-season game than most teams, also play Metro rivals Champlain Valley and Essex next week.

"This is something everybody wants to see," Segar-Reid said.

Contact Alex Abrami at 660-1848 or aabrami@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @aabrami5.